


The Best Medicine

by Innwich



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gore, M/M, Pre-Series, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misha and his family went into hiding, and the war came to them instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Hover over the underlined words for translations.

The wind whistled through the remains of the houses.

The village was deserted. It was rare that the village was as quiet as the mountain.

Piles of bricks and wood lay on the sides of the roads. Most of the debris was scorched. The white snow stood starkly against the black soot of the ruins. Bodies lay half buried under the snow and rubble. Most of them were soldiers. They could not be from the Red Army. Their coats were made of thin materials and their boots were worn with wear. They were poorly equipped for the weather.

They must be the German forces that the propaganda newspapers spoke of.

Misha crouched next to the body of a German soldier. Half of the soldier’s arm had been blown off, leaving a white bone sticking out of the end of a tattered sleeve. The snow under the body was stained with blood.

He was glad he made Zhanna waited for him at the post office. He didn’t want her to see this.

Misha patted the body’s waist. Guts spilled out of a wide clean cut in its abdomen. Strange, the wound hadn’t bled much. When Misha felt something cool and smooth under his fingers, he tugged it out from under the dead man’s belt. It was a pistol and tiny in his palm. It was a gun for babies, but it would do for now

As Misha moved through the devastated streets, he found more dead soldiers scattered in the ruined remains of houses. The soldiers’ bodies were riddled with bullets. A few of them had their bellies or chests slit open, enough to make Misha frown. Disembowelment wasn’t the worst thing that Misha had heard happened in the war, but he hadn’t thought it would be as prevalent as this.

Misha rounded a corner, and froze behind a low wall when he heard men talking speaking in a foreign tongue. Their voices were hushed and low.

Carefully, Misha peaked out from behind the wall.

There were two men in German military uniforms. One of them was sitting against the remains of a fountain. A side of his head was coated in blood. It was not fresh blood. The blood had coagulated around his wound and wasn’t dripping down his face anymore. His nose and ears had turned black from frostbite. The soldier could easily have been for a dead man if not for the fact that the other uniformed man was talking to him in urgent tones.

This man wore glasses and an armband with a red cross printed on it. His helmet was sloppily painted in white in a feeble attempt at providing him with winter camouflage. He was carrying a canvas bag that looked fit to burst. The bag bounced against his hip as he tried to pull the wounded soldier to his feet.

“Lass uns gehen,” the medic said.

“Jawhol,” the soldier said. He was shaking as he stood on his feet. The medic put an arm around the soldier’s waist and they started walking.

Misha should kill them. He should kill them before they came after him and his family.

But Misha didn’t like to kill innocent men. Besides, one of them was a medical man. Misha respected doctors. Doctors had nursed people who had been worked nearly to death in the gulag. They had been there to deliver his baby sisters while he’d been a boy and clinging to Papa’s leg.

In his hesitation, Misha didn’t realize the wall he was hiding behind wasn’t tall enough to conceal him until the wounded soldier suddenly yelled, “Herr Doktor!” The soldier tried to backpedal, nearly slipping in the snow and pulling the medic down with him.

Before Misha could react and stop the soldier from making so much noise, he felt the cold mouth of a barrel pressed against his temple.

The medic had a strong grip on the pistol. His mouth was pursed in a thin line and his eyes were cool behind his glasses. It was the face of a man who wouldn’t hesitate to use his weapon. There would be no pleading and no mercy.

If Misha so much as twitched, he would get a bullet in the head.

Misha wasn’t afraid of dying. He would gladly die a million times over if it meant his family lived, but his mama and baby sisters needed him when the bad men came after them again.

He didn’t want to die, but at the same time he saw no reason why he would be left alive. He was merely an enemy civilian to these men.

The wounded soldier stared up at Misha with wide eyes. His gaze darted between the medic and Misha as he hid behind the medic. Despite his uniform, he looked no different from a scared boy.

“Nein,” the medic said. It took Misha a moment to realize he was talking to him, but Misha didn’t understand a word he was saying. “Wir werden jetzt gehen.”

The wounded soldier wheezed in pain as the medic pulled him down the street. The medic kept his pistol trained on Misha, until the two Germans disappeared out of sight behind the burnt husk of a school.

Heavy didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

It was a close call. Too close

He could still chase down the German soldiers and broke their necks. They couldn’t have gone far with one of them walking on a wounded leg. He could take them down before they could pull out their puny guns.

But then Misha remembered Zhanna and he felt like he’d been dunked into the water of a frozen lake. He had to find Zhanna before more of those German soldiers found her.

It was hard to run fast in the snow when Misha was wrapped tightly in layers of clothes. He didn’t dare call out Zhanna’s name in case he alerted any German soldiers that were still nearby. By the time he reached the sturdy brick building that housed the post office, he was breathing heavily through his mouth.

“Zhanna?” Misha said.

Zhanna looked tiny, standing the post office by herself, surrounded by overturned chairs. She was huddled in the jacket that Mama had made for her. The fur of her collar almost covering her entire face. There wasn’t much in the post office. It housed a few chairs, tables, and a desk behind which an old man had handed over telegrams and took mails to be sent outside of the village.

“The old man is gone,” Zhanna said.

The old man had liked to give Zhanna biscuits. The biscuits had been old and stale, but they’d been the reason Zhanna had always insisted on coming whenever Misha had made his trip into the village.

Misha would bake biscuits if he could. He was old enough to remember when Zhanna was a tiny baby and Papa had been alive and they’d had a brick oven at home. Each time Papa had taken out the tray of biscuits, the whole house would smell of fresh biscuits. The scent would last for a night until the sun came out and Mama opened the windows to let in the warm air.

“There are no biscuits.” Zhanna said. There were tears sliding down her cheeks. Zhanna never cried. She yelled and demanded and broke people’s fingers, but she never cried.

Alarmed, Misha knelt down to hold her. “We have meat from wild animals. It is enough for us.”

“We always eat foxes and rabbits,” Zhanna said. “I don’t want to eat them anymore!”

Misha tried to wipe away her tears. She pushed his hand away.

“We always eat them. I can taste them even when I’m asleep.”

“I can try to get bears,” Misha said. “They have fat meat under their fur. They taste the best after Mama roasts them over the fire.”

“Then why do you only bring us foxes and rabbits?” Zhanna said.

Mama hadn’t liked it when Misha had told her he’d planned to hunt bigger animals. She hadn’t let him leave until he’d promised not to provoke animals that lived in the caves. She hadn’t wanted him to get in danger for his family. Misha said, “You and Yana and Bronislava are too little to finish the meat. You’ll waste the food.”

“I’m not little like Yana and Bronislava,” Zhanna said indignantly. She drew herself to her full height. “They’re babies.”

There were many meals where Misha didn’t eat so that his sisters and Mama could have full stomachs, but Mama always made him eat when she found out he wasn’t eating. On some days when it seemed like every animal in the mountain had gone into hiding deep under the snow, Mama could always somehow make a thin stew for him and his sisters. Misha suspected that Mama skimped on meals to keep leftovers so that they could eat instead.

“Sometimes it’s good to be babies,” Misha said. “Babies are happy.”

“I’m not a baby,” Zhanna said. She only reached Misha’s hips, but she was taller than he had been at that age.

“Yes,” Misha said. “Soon you’ll be hunting bears with me.”

Zhanna brightened. “You promise?”

“I promise,” Misha said.

\- - -

The evergreens on the mountain were laden with snow. Their branches bent under the weight. The roots of the trees were gnarled under the snow. It would trip a careless man. The wind had picked up since Misha and Zhanna had entered the forest; it was howling above the treetops. The only other sounds that could be heard were that of the snow crunching under Misha’s and Zhanna’s boots.

“Misha, look.” Zhanna pointed at a small heap of dirt a few feet ahead of them. The dirt stood stark against the snow that covered the ground.

“Wait for me here,” Misha said. “It may be traps put down by the soldiers.”

“I’m coming with you,” Zhanna said.

The mound was fairly fresh, since only a light dusting of snow covered the dirt. Curious, Misha used his bare hands to remove the dirt. It didn’t take more than a few digs for Misha to uncover the body of a German soldier.

The man was long dead. His eyes were frozen shut. There were icicles clinging to his hair. He looked like an ugly porcelain doll that was covered in spidery cracks. His body had gone gray and stiff. However, that wasn’t what caught Misha’s attention. The man’s shirt had been removed. A gaping wound in his throat had been stitched close by strong black threads that reminded Misha of the threads that Mama had used to repair his clothes when he’d ripped his coat when hunting a wild rabbit.

“The stitching is good,” Zhanna said, peering over his shoulder at the body. “Takes a steady hand to do it.”

“Don’t look, Zhanna,” Misha said.

“I’m not scared,” Zhanna said.

There were long incisions in the man’s chest that resembled a cross. Misha lifted up one of the loose flaps of skin. The man’s ribs were removed; the edges of the broken bones were too smooth for them to be broken by a wild animal. Misha had seen the insides of more dead men than he cared to say, and it was obvious there was something wrong with this man’s heart. It was too small to be a human heart.

“What is a boar’s heart doing in a man’s body?” Misha said.

“Bad things,” Zhanna said. “Mama said there are evil spirits in the mountain.”

Misha didn’t doubt that. He’d seen enough in the gulag to know there were many kinds of evils in the world. There were already too many of them here without the Germans bringing their own over the borders.

Then, he heard something: The sound of a moving vehicle.

Misha pushed snow over the body and pulled Zhanna down to crouch behind a tree with him.

It was a jeep. Two men sat in the front while another lay on a stretcher in the back. As the jeep neared Misha and Zhanna’s hiding place, the man on the stretcher was the wounded soldier from the village. The soldier was jabbering in German and looking several shades better than when Misha had seen him. He might have to have the tips of his nose and ears removed because of frostbite, but he would live.

Soon, the jeep drove out of Misha’s sight and the rumbling faded away.

“Mi-”

Misha put a finger to his lips. He’d heard the faint snap of a tree branch; there was someone else nearby. Zhanna went as still as a rock as Misha strained to listen for more noises. Misha slowed his breathing to be as quiet as possible.

A group of German soldiers emerged from behind a cluster of trees in the direction where the jeep had come from. They were walking slowly in the snow. The medic that had held a gun to Misha’s head was walking with the group. The front of the medic’s coat was covered in dark wet patches. It must be the blood from the other soldier.

“Herr Doktor,” one of the men said. He stopped walking and the group paused in their tracks. Unlike the young soldiers around him, he had a face that was lined with age. There were decorations on his shoulder-straps. He was an officer.

“Stimmt etwas nicht?” the medic said.

“Ich glaube du hast das hier verloren,” the officer said. He held up the bag that Misha had seen the medic carrying earlier. It was bulging at the sides.

“Danke. Ich brauche diesen Tasche,” the medic said. He held out his hand to take the bag, but the officer didn’t hand the bag to him.

“Was ist Dies, Herr Doktor?” the officer said.

“Ich weiß nicht, was du meinst,” the medic said.

The officer opened the bag and turned it upside down. Its contents spilled out and fell into the snow with wet plops. When Misha looked at the ground, he finally saw that it wasn’t medical supplies but intestines and organs that had been in the bag. Silence fell over the group as the rest of the group stared at the gore-splattered snow.

“Was ist Dies?” the officer repeated.

No one spoke. Then, a strange noise bubbled out of the medic.

“Ha.”

The medic pressed his hand against his lips, but it didn’t stop his laughter.

“Haha.”

If anything, he was laughing harder than before. The medic was shaking with laughter. Leaves rustled as birds were disturbed from their rest by the noise.

“Hahahahaha!”

It was infectious. Misha couldn’t stop himself from chuckling quietly. He would be laughing out loud if he wasn’t afraid of giving his position away. The other soldiers, however, appeared to find it less than amusing, as they stared at the medic wit.

“Das sind unsere Kameraden.” The medic picked up a heart from the ground, grinning widely. His teeth were white and his gum pink. He had a flush high in his cheeks. It was a pretty smile. “Sie sind wunderbar.”

“Er ist verrückt,” one of the soldiers said.

“Misha.”

“Yes?” Misha turned around to face Zhanna.

Zhanna breathed out small white puffs of air as she whispered. “Do you know what they’re saying?”

“No.”

“But you are smiling,” Zhanna pointed out. “I only heard you laugh when you killed those guards when we were running away.”

There hadn’t been a lot of laughter for Misha or his family after they’d escaped from the gulag. They had little time for amusement when they had to worry about food and the men that never stopped chasing them no matter how far they hid in the mountains.

Misha wasn’t sure why the medic’s laughter had made him wanted to laugh, when so few things had that effect on him. He only knew the sound of laughter had made him feel warm on the inside and forget about the biting cold on his face for a moment. He couldn’t explain it. But Zhanna was still watching him and waiting for him to share the punchline of a joke she didn’t understand, so he just said, “The man has a funny laugh.”

Zhanna tilted her head. Misha could almost see the wheels working behind her eyes as she digested the information. Finally, she said, “You should laugh more. You are our big brother, but you don’t have to be serious all the time, Misha.”

Misha smiled. He took Zhanna’s hand in his. “Maybe. But, first, we go home, before the soldiers catch us.”

The soldiers were too distracted by the medic bursting into another bout of laughter to hear Misha and Zhanna sneaking away from their hiding spot. Misha and Zhanna trekked through the forest and made their way up the mountain. Home was a small rickety house that had windows that rattled loudly when the wind got strong at night. They would have to move before anyone found them, especially with the war arriving on their doorsteps, but, as Misha stooped down to let Mama hug him, he knew this was where home was.

For now.


End file.
